My daughter and I, fellow teammates, coaches, family and friends said goodbye to Coach Paul. I only knew Paul for a couple of months since we had only been members of this swim team starting in October, but I was very impressed with this young coach.

It wasn't how he coached my daughter that impressed me even though he was very good with the young kids. It was how he dealt with me when I came to him with the request of private training. I had parted ways from my previous masters group, due to a scheduling conflict, and I needed to get a coach again as I felt like I was adrift and needed some sort of structure. Paul and I would meet once a week for an hour. The very first swim practice he had me swim 500 meters to watch my stroke and evaluate me. He then did something that I was not expecting. He pulled out a Finis tempo trainer. I, of course, have one, but I wasn't really using it correctly. What's the big deal with a tempo trainer? Well, most pool coaches either don't know what it is or don't know how to use one. Paul was the very first swim coach that I have had who knew what it was and how to implement it into my training. It has helped tremendously. Paul also crunched some numbers and figured out how many meters 20 miles is, 30,000+, and he figured out what pace I would need to hold the entire 20 miles. 1:50/100 meters. No coach has ever done that for me.

Even though Paul is gone, I imagine that he will still be watching and coaching me.